Mitt Romney outspends Rick Santorum 4-1 to win Wisconsin

Ads, phone calls and mailers have bombarded voters in Wisconsin in the days leading up to Tuesday’s vote — the next major battleground in the Republican presidential race.

The Badger State primary has gained significance over the last week as both Mitt Romney’s and Rick Santorum’s campaigns have indicated it could dramatically alter the momentum and duration of the race.

Romney and his allies have outspent their rivals by a little less than a 4-1 margin on television ads in the state, according to figures provided by an unaligned Republican media consultant that tracks ad spending in the nomination race.

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Throughout the weekend, Santorum, known for being relatively dour at times, seemed cheerful — gleeful even. He was relaxed, cracking jokes during his speeches and even slipping in a few cracks about himself. At a late night address in Pewaukee on Saturday, for instance, he jokingly mentioned his disastrous Senate defeat in 2006 against Bob Casey, a fact of history he rarely volunteers to discuss unprovoked.

“This is the most upbeat Santorum speech I’ve heard him give,” observed NBC News embed reporter Andrew Rafferty, who has trailed Santorum across the country for months. “Maybe ever.”

For Santorum, it is possible the apparent giddiness could be his way of accepting that the campaign season is winding down. He has arguably been one of the hardest working candidates in the race, having labored his way up from the bottom of the polls when he held events in Iowa that literally no one showed up for, to becoming the lead rival to the frontrunner. The man has only taken five days off the campaign trail since last summer, and spent most of that time eking his way along financially. With weak organization to speak of and an entourage that consisted of little more than the candidate and a friend with a Dodge Ram, Santorum went from being the candidate who could hardly get his name on the ballot in some states to becoming a household name.

If the two front-runners were spending the same amount of money, Santorum would win the primary by a landslide. Romney is just getting too much money from: global warming advocates: and Wall Street bankers.